-NRLF 


GIFT  OF 


GTTT 

JllN  34 


^ 
JJurbank's 

Spineless 
Cactus 


Company 

—       ' '  i 

Sole  Distributer 


General  Offices:  Exposition  Bldg.,  Pine  and  Battery  Sts. 
San  Francisco,  California 

THIS    BOOK    COP>R1GHTED    1913    BY    THE    LUTHER    BURBANK    CO. 


GENERAL  OFFICES 

EXPOSITION  BLDG. 

Pine  and  Battery  Sts. 
SAN  FRANCISCO,  CALIFORNIA 


SANTA  ROSA  OFFICE: 

Hahman  Building 
Opposite  the  Court  House. 


Experiment  Farms,  Santa  Rosa,  California 
Not  Open  to  the  Public. 

Proving  Grounds  and  Nurseries,  Sebastopol, 

California. 
Not  Open  to  the  Public. 

Demonstration  Station,  Broadmoor, 

Oakland,  California. 
OPEN  TO  THE  PUBLIC. 

Seed  Farms,  Santa  Clara  Valley,  California. 

Warehouse  and  Distributing  Point, 
Oakland,  California. 


'Addfe^sT^l:  Communications  to  the  General 
...   .Qf&Qe  jjt  Sa/i. Francisco,  California. 

•    **  -  •    .  * 


LTJTHER    BTJRBAXK  >J>'*,,..;     J,'  iS  J  '•}  •; ."', 

SANTA.   ROSA,   CALIF. 
U.  S.  A. 

In  these  modern  times  a  man  must  confine  his 
efforts  to  a  single  occupation  if  it  is  to  be  well 
done  . 

To  be  an  extensive  and  successful  producer  of 
new  forms  of  plant  life  and  a  successful  merchant 
on  a  large  scale  is  perhaps  beyond  the  limit  of 
any  one  man  and  I  have  found  it  necessary  either 
to  confine  myself   wholly  to  selling  my  new 
varieties  of  plant  life  or  discontinue  development 
work  . 

Greatly  preferring  to  devote  my  entire  energies 
to  the  production  of  new  varieties,  I  have 
disposed   of  the  sales  department  to  a  corporation 
which  will  manage,  market  and  carry  on  exclusively 
the  business  of  selling  the  various  new  forms  of 
plant  life  which  I  have  evolved. 

MANY  HUNDREDS  OF  THESE  PRODUCTIONS,  ABSOLUTELY 
NEW  TO  MANKIND  AND  MORE  USEFUL  AND  VALUABLE  THAN 
THOSE  NOW  KNOWN,  ARE  ALREADY  COMPLETE  AND  AWAIT 
INTRODUCTION. 

This  corporation,  The  Luther  Burbank  Company, 
is  the  sole  distributer  of  the  Luther  Burbank  Hor- 
ticultural productions,  and  from  no  other  source 
can  any  one  be  positively  assured  of  obtaining 
genuine  Luther  Burbank  Production. 

To  give  each  purchaser  a  guarantee  of  receiv- 
ing original  Burbank  creations,  this  corporation 
has  originated  a  trademark.   The  name  "Burbank" 
has  been  so  indiscriminately  and  fraudulently  used 
that  it  has  been  in  danger  of  losing,  in  a  measure, 
its  true  significance.   Every  package  of  seed  and 
every  plant  sent  out  from  this  corporation  will 
have  this  trademark  on  it  for  your  protection. 
All  fraudulent  uses  of  the  same  will  be  vigorously 
prosecuted  and  any  information  that  will  give 
knowledge  of  its  misuse  will  be  welcome. 

Signed , 


THIS   BOOK  COPYRIGHTED   1913   BY  THE   LUTHER   BURBANK  COMPANY 


261279 


The  Spineless  Cactus 

How  to  Judge  Novelties — Look  to  Their  Source 


The  greatest  inconvenience  and  injus- 
tice is  not  misunderstanding,  prejudice, 
envy,  jealousy,  ignorance  or  ingratitude, 
but  that  purchasers  are  so  often  deceived 
by  various  unscrupulous  dealers  who, 
taking  advantage  of  the  name  "Burbank," 
hoist  on  the  public  green  carnations, 
hardy  bananas,  half  wild,  thorny  cactus, 
for  Burbank  thornless  ones,  blue  roses, 
seedless  watermelons,  cigars,  soap,  real 
estate,  magazine  articles,  obtaining  money 
or  positions  under  false  statements  of 
having  been  in  my  employ,  and  a  thou- 
sand other  similar  schemes;  and  by  out- 
rageous misrepresentations  or  the  change 
or  addition  of  a  word  or  two  from  the  cor- 


rect descriptions,  deceiving  purchasers, 
even  when  a  genuine  product  of  real 
value  may  happen  to  be  offered. 

Wise  planters  procure  their  cuttings 
and  plants  from  the  original  source.  Tons 
of  so-called  "thornless"  cactus  cuttings 
have  been  sold  to  unsuspecting  customers 
as  "BurbankV  or  "just  as  good  as  Bur- 
bank's"  by  a  few  dealers  who  well  know 
that  they  are  not  in  any  respect  what 
they  claim  for  them. 


History  of  the  Spineless  Cactus 

by  Luther  Burbank 


For  more  than  fifty  years  I  have  been 
quite  familiar  with  "thornless  cactus"  of 
many  species  and  varieties.  In  fact,  one 
of  the  first  pets  which  I  had  in  earliest 
childhood  was  a  thornless  cactus,  one  of 
the  beautiful  Epiphyllums. 

The  Phyllocactus  and  many  of  the 
Cereus  family  are  also  thornless,  not  a 
trace  to  be  found  on  any  part  of  the  plants 
or  fruit.  Thus  the  somewhat  indefinite 
popular  name  of  "spineless  cactus"  has 
been  used  by  persons  unacquainted  with 
these  facts,  for  be  it  known  that  "thorn- 
less  cactus"  is  no  more  of  a  novelty  than 
a  "thornless"  watermelon. 

But  among  the  Cacti,  which  grow  to  an 
immense  size  with  great  rapidity  and 
which  can  be  readily  cultivated  in  garden, 
field  or  desert,  no  perfectly  thornless  ones 


were  known  and  very  little  interest  taken 
in  the  cacti  of  any  kind,  either  thorny  or 
thornless,  as  to  their  agricultural  or  hor- 
ticultural value  until  some  seventeen 
years  ago  when  the  work  of  improvement 
was  taken  up  on  my  experiment  farms, 
and  improved  perfectly  smooth,  rapid- 
growing  varieties  had  been  produced  and 
made  known. 

Some  of  the  best  growers  among  these 
will  produce  five  to  ten  times  as  much 
weight  of  food  as  will  the  wild  thorny 
ones  (which  some  ignorant  or  unprinci- 
pled dealers  have  recommended  for  cul- 
tivation), under  exactly  the  same  condi- 
tions. These  wonderful  results  were  not 
unexpected  as  the  genus  Opuntia  is  a 
surprisingly  variable  one,  even  in  the 
wild  state. 


The  best  botanists — even  those  who 
have  made  the  Opuntias  a  special  study — 
declare  it  to  be  one  of  the  most  difficult 
genera  to  classify,  as  new  forms  are  con- 
stantly appearing  and  the  older  ones  so 
gradually  and  imperceptibly  merge  to- 
gether. The  facts,  without  doubt,  are  that 
their  ancestors  had  leaves  like  other  vege- 
tation and  were  as  thornless  as  an  apple 
tree,  but  in  ages  past  were  stranded  in 
a  region  -which  was  gradually  turning  to 
a  desert,  perhaps,  by  the  slow  evapora- 
tion of  some  great  inland  lake  or  sea. 

Being  thus  stranded  the  plants  which 
could  adapt  themselves  to  the  heat  and 
drought  which  as  the  years  passed  by  be- 
came each  season  more  and  more  severe, 
survived,  at  first  by  dropping  the  leaves, 
thus  preventing  too  much  evaporation, 
leaving  the  fat  smooth  stems  only  to  per- 
form the  functions  of  leaves. 

The  Opuntias  even  to  this  day  always 
shoot  out  very  numerous  rudimentary 
leaves,  which  persist  a  few  days  or  weeks 
and  then,  having  no  function  to  perform, 
drop  off.  These  rudimentary  leaves  which 
always  appear  for  a  time  on  the  young 
slabs  are  often  mistaken  for  big  thorns  by 
those  who  are  not  familiar  with  the 
growth  and  -habits  of  the  plant. 

But  the  Opuntias  had  yet  to  meet  an- 
other enemy ;  desert  animals  were  hungry 
for  their  rich  stores  of  nutriment  and 
water,  so  the  rudimentary  leaves  were 
supplemented  by  the  awful  needle-like 
.  thorns  placed  at  exactly  the  right  angles 
for  the  best  defense. 

Some  seventeen  years  ago,  while  test- 
ing the  availability  of  a  great  number  of 
proposed  forage  plants  from  the  various 
arid  regions  of  the  world  with  a  view  to 
the  improvement  of  the  most  promising,  I 
was  greatly  impressed  with  the  apparent 
possibilities  in  this  line  among  the  Opun- 
tias, which  from  their  well-known  vigor 
and  rapidity  of  growth,  easy  multiplica- 
tion and  universal  adaptability  to  condi- 
tions of  drought,  flood,  heat,  cold,  rich 
or  arid  soil,  place  them  as  a  class  far  ahead 
of  all  other  members  of  the  great  cactus 
family,  both  as  forage  plants  and  for  their 
most  attractive,  •wholesome  and  delicious 
fruits,  which  are  produced  abundantly  and 
without  fail  each  season. 


These  fruits,  which  are  borne  on  the 
different  species  and  varieties,  vary  in 
size  from  that  of  a  small  peanut  to  the 
size  of  a  very  large  banana  and  in  colors 
of  crimson,  scarlet,  orange,  yellow  and 
white,  and  also  shaded  in  various  colors 
like  apples,  pears,  peaches  and  plums,  and 
with  more  various  attractive  flavors  than 
are  found  in  most  other  fruits  except,  per- 
haps, the  apple  and  the  pear,  the  product 
of  a  single  plant  being  often  from  50  to 
200  pounds  per  annum,  some  bearing  one 
crop,  others  two  or  more  each  season  like 
the  figs,  the  first  or  main  crop  ripening 
as  the  second  comes  into  bloom  on  the 
same  plants. 

The  Opuntias,  from  root  to  tip,  are 
practically  all  food  and  drink  and  are 
greatly  relished  by  all  herbivorous  ani- 
mals, and  for  this  very  reason  have  had 
to  be  on  the  defensive,  and  perhaps  no- 
where in  the  whole  vegetable  kingdom 
have  such  elaborate  preparations  been 
made;  the  punishment  inflicted  is  imme- 
diate, the  pain  severe  and  lasting,  often 
ending  in  death,  so  that  all  living  things 
have  learned  to  avoid  the  Opuntias  as 
_they  do  rattlesnakes,  and  notwithstanding 
their  most  delicious  and  nourishing  fruit 
produced  unfailingly  in  greatest  abund- 
ance have  never  before  been  systematic- 
ally improved  by  the  Agriculturalist  and 
Horticulturalist  as  their  merits  so  well  de- 
serve. 

By  my  collectors  and  others,  for  the 
earliest  experiments  in  this  work,  the  best 
Opuntias  from  all  sections  of  Mexico, 
from  Central  and  South  America,  from 
North  and  South  Africa,  Australia,  Japan, 
Hawaii  and  the  South  Sea  Islands,  were 
secured.  The  United  States  Agricultural 
Department  at  Washington,  through  my 
friend,  Mr.  David  G.  Fairchild,  also  se- 
cured eight  kinds  of  partially  thornless 
ones  for  me  from  Sicily,  Italy,  France  and 
North  Africa,  besides  a  small  collection  of 
Mexican  wild  thorny  ones  which  were  in 
the  Government  greenhouses  at  the  time. 
Besides  these  I  had  the  hardy  wild  species 
from  Maine,  Iowa,  Missouri,  Colorado, 
California,  Arizona,  New  Mexico,  Dakota, 
Texas  and  other  States. 

All  these  were  grown  and  their  agricul- 
tural and  horticultural  values  studied  and 
compared  with  great  care. 


Many  so  -  called  thornless  or  partly 
thornless  ones  were  obtained,  but  not  one 
among  the  thousands  from  all  these 
sources  was  free  from  thorns  and 
spicules,  and  even  worse,  those  which 
were  the  most  promising  in  these  respects 
often  bore  the  poorest  fruit,  were  the  most 
unproductive  of  fruit  or  produced  less 
fodder,  or  were  less  hardy  than  the  wild 
thorny  species  and  varieties. 

The  first  work  was  to  select  the  best  of 
these,  cross  them,  raise  numerous  seed- 
lings, select  the  best  of  these  and  so  con- 
tinue hoping  for  improvement. 

One  of  the  first  and  not  unexpected 
facts  of  importance  to  be  observed  was 
that  by  crossing,  the  thorns  were  often 
increased  rather  than  diminished,  but  not 
so  with  all.  Some  very  few  still  became 
even  more  thornless  than  their  so-called 


thornless  parents  with  greatly  increased 
size  and  quality  of  leaves  (raquettes  or 
slabs),  and  among  them  a  combination  of 
the  best  qualities  of  both  parents  with 
surprising  productiveness  of  slabs  for 
feeding. 

The  work  is  still  in  progress,  but  on  a 
still  larger  scale  and  now  these  improved 
Opuntias  promise  to  be  one  of  the  most 
important  food-producers  of  this  age, 
some  of  these  new  creations  grown  from 
the  same  lot  of  seed  yielding  fully  ten 
times  as  much  feed  as  others  under  ex- 
actly the  same  conditions. 

Old  half  thornless  ones  have  been 
grown  for  ages.  Among  the  very  nu- 
merous wild  seedling  Opuntias,  partially 
thornless  ones  have  appeared  from  time  to 
time  and  these  have  been  growing  gen- 


Wild  Thorny  Cactus 


erally  unnoticed  here  and  there  in  every 
part  of  the  earth  where  the  thorny  ones 
grew,  the  seeds  no  doubt  scattered  by 
birds  and  other  agencies.  Some  of  these 
bore  fairly  good  but  seedy  fruits  and  have 
been  locally  cultivated  for  ages,  but  have 
never  received  specific  horticultural  names 
or  descriptions,  though  the  fruits  of  these 
and  the  thorny  ones  have  long  been  used 
extensively  as  food  and  are  the  principal 
source  of  food  for  millions  of  human  be- 
ings in  Southern  Europe,  North  Africa, 
Mexico  and  other  lands,  for  about  three 
months  in  each  year. 

Systematic  work  for  their  improvement 
has  shown  how  pliable  and  readily  mould- 
ed is  this  unique,  hardy  denizen  of  rocky, 
drought-cursed,  wind-swept,  sun-blistered 
districts,  and  how  readily  it  adapts  itself 
to  more  fertile  soils  and  how  rapidly  it 
improves  under  cultivation  and  improved 
conditions. 

Some  one  asks:  "Won't  they  run  wild 
a^ain  and  produce  thorns,  when  placed 
under  desert  conditions?" 

Has  the  "Burbank"  plum,  which  though 
introduced  twenty-two  years  ago,  and 
is  now  more  widely  grown  than  any 
other  plum  on  this  earth,  shown  a  tend- 
ency to  be  different  in  Africa,  Borneo, 
Japan,  Egypt,  Madagascar  or  France? 
No,  it  is  the  same  everywhere  and  the  res- 
idents of  Chicago,  Auckland,  London,  San 
Francisco,  New  York  and  Valparaiso  con- 
sume them  in  great  (and  rapidly  increas- 
ing) numbers  of  carloads  each  season. 
The  same  may  be  said  of  the  later  intro- 
duced Wickson,  America  and  numerous 
other  plums  and  of  my  improved  fruits 
and  flowers  which  are  extensively  grown 
and  generally  offered  for  sale  by  most  re- 
sponsible firms  in  all  civilized  countries 
and  are  generally  slowly  but  very  surely 
replacing  the  old  and  heretofore  standard 
varieties. 

It  will  be  so  with  these  "new  creations" 
in  Opuntia.  Tens  of  thousands  of  others 
not  now  ready  to  be  distributed  are  under 
test,  this  catalog  partially  describing  only 
the  beginnings  of  a  great  work  with  the 
Opuntias,  which  in  importance  may  be 
classed  with  the  discovery  of  a  new  con- 
tinent. 


Does  this  work,  which  has  been  only 
just  briefly  outlined,  mean  anything? 

Intelligent  people  everywhere  know 
well  that  it  means  a  new  agricultural  era 
for  whole  continents  like  Australia  and 
Africa,  and  millions  of  otherwise  useless 
acres  in  North  and  South  America,  Eu- 
rope and  Asia. 

And  now  during  the  past  three  years 
the  United  States  Department  of  Agri- 
culture has  despatched  agents  to  all 
parts  where  cacti  grow  to  look  up  this 
matter  among  those  who  had  for  years 
been  feeding  the  wild,  thorny  ones  to 
their  stock  with  good  results  when  prop- 
erly prepared  by  fire,  though  it  is  ac- 
knowledged that  thus  prepared,  a  portion 
of  their  nutritive  value  is  lost  and  though 
the  dangers  of  loss  from  feeding  to  stock 
are  lessened,  are  not  by  any  means  made 
safe,  even  by  singeing  or  any  other  pro- 
cess, while  many  of  these  new  thornless 
ones  are  as  safe  to  handle  and  as  safe  to 
feed  as  beets,  potatoes,  carrots  or  pump- 
kins. 

But  let  it  be  understood  that  these 
thorns  are  not  growing  on  the  wild  Opun- 
~tias  for  ornament  any  more  than  poison 
fangs,  teeth,  claws  and  stings  are  pos- 
sessed by  various  animals. 

They  are  for  defense,  and  when  de- 
prived of  these  defenses  they  must  be 
protected  from  stock  like  any  other  feed 
grown  in  farm,  fields  or  gardens. 

Still  some  doubter  who  has  no  knowl- 
edge of  desert  conditions  or  of  these  new 
plants  will  say,  "Will  it  pay?"  Does  any- 
thing pay?  Some  people  seem  to  think 
that  corn,  wheat,  oats,  barley,  cotton,  rice, 
tobacco,  melons  and  potatoes  pay. 

How  many  tons  of  hay,  beets  or  pota- 
toes can  be  raised  each  season  on  an  acre 
of  good  soil?  Yes,  well,  by  actual  weight 
in  the  summer  of  1906  in  the  cool  coast 
climate  of  Sonoma  County,  Cal.,  on  a 
heavy,  black  "adobe"  soil,  generally 
thought  wholly  unsuited  for  cactus,  my 
new  Opuntias  produced  the  first  year,  six 
months  from  single  rooted  leaves,  planted 
about  June  1,  an  average  of  47^2  pounds 
per  plant  or  one-fourth  acre,  yielding  at 
the  distance  planted  (2^x5  feet),  at  the 
rate  of  180,230  pounds,  over  ninety  tons, 
of  forage  per  acre. 


Some  of  the  best  varieties  produced  very 
much  above  this  average. 

Though  planted  much  too  closely  for 
permanent  field  culture,  yet  these  notes 
are  of  interest  on  a  subject  of  which  little 
has  been  known. 

These  Opuntias  are  always  expected  to 
and  do  produce  nearly  or  quite  double  as 


much  feed  the  third  and  succeeding  years 
as  they  do  the  second  season  of  planting. 
Yet,  I  would  not  expect  one-fourth  the 
above  yield  on  desert  soil  without  irriga- 
tion but  would  expect  nearly  or  quite 
twice  as  much  as  the  yield  mentioned 
above  in  a  very  warm  climate  with  one  or 
two  light  irrigations  each  season. 


The  Spineless  Cactus 


These  improved  Opuntias  must,  of 
course,  be  fenced  from  stock  when  young, 
but  after  two  or  three  years'  growth  stock 
may  safely  be  turned  loose  among  them 
as  with  age  the  main  stem  becomes  woody 
and  will  not  be  injured,  but  on  removal 
of  stock  will  at  once  make  a  most  rapid 
new  growth. 

The  leaves  are  to  be  fed  to  stock  at  any 
season  throughout  the  whole  year  when 
most  needed,  and  in  countries  where  great 
numbers  of  valuable  stock  are  lost  in  times 
of  unusual  drought,  will  be  of  inestimable 
value  and  will  also  prove  of  enormous 
value  in  less  arid  countries  as  a  common 
farm  or  orchard  crop,  even  on  the  best 
agricultural  soils,  but  more  especially  on 
barren,  rocky,  hill  and  mountain  sides  and 
gravelly  river  beds,  which  are  now  of  no 
use  whatever. 

The  small,  hard,  wild  thorny  cactus  has 
been  a  common  every-day  food  for  horses, 
camels,  mules,  oxen,  growing  and  beef 
stock,  dairy  cows,  pigs,  and  poultry  for 
more  than  fifty  years. 

Though  millions  have  died  from  the 
thorns*,  yet  no  systematic  work  for  their 
improvement  had  been  taken  up  until 
some  seventeen  years  ago;  now  agricul- 
turists and  horticulturists  in  every  land 
are  deeply  interested,  and  the  governments 
of  all  countries  are  taking  measures  to  se- 
cure a  stock  of  the  improved  Burbank 
Opuntias  to  avoid  if  possible  the  too  com- 
mon occurrence  of  famines,  for  the  Opun- 
tias can  remain  uncultivated  and  undis- 
turbed year  after  year,  constantly  increas- 
ing in  size  and  weight  until  needed ;  then 
each  acre  will  preserve  the  lives  of  a  hun- 
dred animals  or  even  human  beings  for 
months  until  other  food  can  be  obtained. 

The  wild  cactus  is  generally  prepared 
for  stock  by  singeing  the  thorns  with  fire, 
yet  this  never  destroys  all  of  the  thorns. 

Those  who  have  fed  the  wild  cactus  ex- 
tensively acknowledge  that  cattle  are 
often  seen  with  blood  dripping  from  their 
mouths,  and  that  their  throats  and 
tongues  become  at  last  inflamed,  very 
painful  and  hard,  like  a  piece  of  sole 
leather. 

How  would  you  enjoy  being  fed  on 
needles,  fish-hooks,  toothpicks,  barbed 
wire  fence,  nettles  and  chestnut  burrs? 


The  wild,  thorny  cactus  is  and  always 
must  be  more  or  less  of  a  pest. 

Millions  of  cattle,  sheep,  goats,  hogs, 
ostriches  and  other  animals  have  been 
destroyed  by  it. 

The  new  thornless  ones  will  withstand 
flood,  drought,  heat,  wind  and  poor  soil 
better  than  the  wild  ones  and  will  produce 
one  hundred  tons  of  good  food  where  the 
average  wild  ones  will  produce  ten  tons 
of  inferior  food. 

Dry  seasons,  which  are  certain  to  come, 
have  been  and  will  continue  to  be  the 
source  of  irreparable  loss  to  stock  raisers. 

Many  of  the  owners  of  the  great  stock 
ranges  have  seen  the  necessity  of  some 
insurance  against  these  fearful  losses  and 
are  devoting  certain  tracts  to  these  new 
cactus  plants  to  avert  this  danger  as  well 
as  for  supplementing  the  usual  feed. 


J^The  wild  cactus  is  prepared  by  boiling  or  steam- 
ing in  Australia  in  times  of  drought,  but  even 
though  great  loss  of  stock  is  sometimes  reported 
when  thus  prepared,  some  are  saved  from  other- 
wise certain  starvation. 


Professor  J.  P.  Leotsakos  says  in  regard  to  the 
cactus: 

"The  old,  somewhat  thorny  fruiting  cactus  is,  in 
my  native  country,  one  of  the  principal  foods  for 
both  opulence  and  poverty  during  three  months 
of  the  year  when  it  is  abundant.  These  pear 
fruits  are  delicious,  exceedingly  nutritious  and 
healthful.  I  would  rather,  by  far,  have  half  a 
dozen  of  them  for  breakfast  than  the  best  beef- 
steak or  any  other  food.  The  fruit  of  these  per- 
fected cacti  is  the  best  fruit  food  for  man  or 
beast,  and  Mr.  Burbank  is  a  great  benefactor  in 
perfecting  the  cactus.  If  he  lived  in  Greece  a 
monument  would  be  erected  to  him  in  every  city. 
I  have  never  seen  in  all  the  world  such  an  as- 
tounding crop  of  fruit  as  I  saw  on  Burbank's  new 
varieties  of  truly  spineless  cactus  at  Santa  Eosa, 
California." 


Prof.  3.  P.  Leotsakos  is  a  graduate  of  the 
Royal  Classical  College  of  Athens  and  a  teleiofoi- 
tos  of  the  law  department  of  the  University  of 
Athens,  and  belongs  to  one  of  the  best-known 
families  of  contemporary  Greece.  His  father  was 
the  commander  of  the  'revolutionary  army  that 
brought  about  the  deposition  of  King  Otho  in 
1862,  afterwards  an  aide-de-camp  to  the  present 
King  George,  and  finally  Senator  from  Lakonia 
in  the  Greek  Parliament  at  Athens. — D.  N.  Bo- 
tassi,  Consul-General  of  Greece. 


An  Australian  Scene — Feeding  Wild  Thorny  Cactus  to  Sheep  in  Times  of  Drought.     Often  Death 
Was  the  Penalty,  Due  to  the  Thorns — But  Many  Sheep  Were  Saved. 


Results  of  Feeding  Wild  Thorny  Cactus  in 
Various  Parts  of  the  World 


For  hundreds,  probably  thousands  of 
years,  the  great,  rapid-growing,  desert 
thorny  cactus  has  furnished  food  for  stock 
and  fruit  for  man,  especially  in  Southern 
Europe,  Northern  Africa,  Australia  and 
the  United  States. 

The  whole  plant  furnishes  nutritious 
food  in  abundance,  yet  great  pain  and 
often  death  was  the  penalty  for  using 
them.  In  addition  to  the  slabs,  which  fur- 
nish the  forage,  the  fruit  produced  many 
tons  to  the  acre,  is  very  valuable  as  a  stock 
food,  owing  to  the  high  percentage  of 
sugar. 

The  slabs  of  the  wild  cactus  are  cov- 
ered with  a  mass  of  stout  thorns,  often 
from  one  to  two  inches  in  length,  and  as 
sharp  as  needles. 


Frequently,  in  times  of  drought,  the 
hunger-driven  livestock  endeavored  to 
reach  the  rich  succulent  slabs,  so  jealously 
guarded  by  the  thorns,  and  as  a  result 
would  often  be  seen  with  blood  dripping 
from  their  mouths. 

Stockmen  and  herders,  for  hundreds  of 
years,  have  availed  themselves  of  this 
source  of  food  supply,  and  it  is  frequently 
a  common  sight  to  see  men  gathering 
from  the  desert  the  slabs,  which  are  to  be 
fed  to  cattle,  sheep  and  hogs. 

The  custom  has  been  to  burn  or  singe 
the  thorns  or  spines  from  the  slabs  before 
feeding  to  the  stock.  The  process  of  singe- 
ing was  necessarily  a  slow  and  expensive 
one,  and  this  expense,  coupled  to  imper- 
fect results  in  ridding  the  slabs  of  all  the 


thorns,  was  the  only  obstacle  to  a  greater 
use,  for  otherwise  the  forage  properties 
of  the  wild,  thorny  cactus  are  excellent 
and  most  satisfactory  to  the  stockmen. 

A  sort  of  gasoline  blow-torch  has  been 
used  with  considerable  success,  particular- 
ly in  the  southwestern  portion  of  the 
United  States  and  in  Australia.  Boiling, 
as  well  as  singeing  by  other  methods,  has 
been  resorted  to  and  with  such  success 
that  many  thousands  of  cattle  and  sheep 
have  been  saved  from  certain  starvation 
during  droughts. 

However,  no  method  has  been  wholly 
satisfactory,  as  it  seems  to  be  utterly  im- 
possible to  get  rid  of  all  the  thorns  and 
do  it  on  an  economical  commercial  scale. 

In  North  Africa,  according  to  M.  A. 
Johanne,  in  the  Journal  D'Agriculture 
Tropicale,  (Paris),  the  thorny  cactus  is 
considered  a  forage  plant  of  great  im- 
portance in  the  feeding  of  stock.  The  wild 
cactus  has  been  taken  under  cultivation, 
and  plantations  have  been  cultivated  for 


a  period  as  long  as  fifty  years,  and  the 
plants  are  still  vigorous  and  productive. 
By  adding  a  very  small  quantity  of 
chopped  straw  to  the  slabs,  excellent  re- 
sults are  had  in  feeding  beef  cattle,  milch 
cows,  goats,  etc. 

From  Hawaii  the  manager  of  one  of 
the  largest  ranches  writes : 

Haleakala  Ranch, 
Makawao,  Maui,  T.  H., 
April  17,  1905. 
Editor  Butchers'  and  Stock  Growers' 

Journal: 

I  read  with  much  interest  in  your  issue  of  the 
30th  ultimo  the  article  on  "Cactus-Fed  Beef." 

On  this  ranch  we  have  one  paddock  of  twelve 
hundred  acres  covered  very  thickly  with  cactus 
or  prickly  pear;  there  is  also  a  slight  growth  of 
Bermuda  grass  growing.  In  this  paddock  are 
pastured,  all  the  year  round,  four  hundred  head 
of  cattle  and  about  seven  hundred  hogs.  The 
cattle  only  get  water  when;  it  rains,  this  is, 
during  the  months  of  December  and  January;  the 
other  ten  months  they  subsist  entirely  and  solely 
on  the  fruit  a,nd  young  leaves  of  the  cactus, 
which  they  help  themselves  to.  It  is  a  remark- 
able fact  that  during  the  dry  months  of  the  year 


Using  the  Gasoline  Torch  to  Singe  the  Thorns  From  the  Wild  Thorny  Cactus  so  the  Cactus  Could 

Be  Fed  to  Live  Stock.     An  Expensive  Process,  But  Practiced  by  Many  on 

Account  of  the  Food  Value  of  the  Cactus 


Collecting  Wild  Thorny  Cactus  in  Australia,  Where  It  Is  Fed  in  Quantities 


we  get  more  fat  cattle  per  cent  from  that  pad- 
dock than  from  any  of  the  others. 

I  consider  cattle  fed  on  cactus  like  these  are 
to  have  as  fine  flavored  beef  as  any  I  have  tasted 
in  San  Francisco  or  New  Zealand. 

The  hogs,  with  the  exception  of  a  light  daily 
ration  of  corn,  fed  to  keep  them  tame,  live  ex- 
clusively on  the  young  leaves  and  fruit,  which 
are  fed  to  them  by  herders,  and  thrive  wonder- 
fully. 

L.  VON  TEMPSKY, 
Manager  Haleakala  Ranch  Co. 

In  Texas,  William  St.  Clair,  a  successful 
cattleman,  who  has  for  years  been  using 
the  wild,  thorny  cactus  for  cattle  food, 
writes : 

"We  find  it  very  poor  policy  to  put  the  slightest 
limit  on  the  amount  our  cows  get.  The  more 
they  can  eat,  the  better  they  thrive,  and  the 
more  milk  they  give.  There  is  nothing  that  sets 
them  back  more  than  a  shortage  of  cactus.  If  we 
happen  to  be  short  of  milk,  the  cause  is  almost 
invariably  traced  to  the  lack  of  cactus." 


H.  W.  Giddens  of  the  Giddens  Stock 
Farm,  Texas,  says : 

"Cactus  produces  a  good,  rich,  grass-colored 
butter,  without  any  odor  or  flavors.  We  feed  in 
the  field,  and  simply  singe  the  spines." 

Actual  feeding  tests  with  a  large  num- 
ber of  stock  have  been  held  where  the 
chief  food  for  the  stock  consisted  of  wild 
cactus.  It  was  found  that  under  adverse 
conditions  the  gain  in  weight  was  very 
satisfactory  and  the  cattle  thrived  exceed- 
ingly well.  The  cattle  were  handled  in 
the  same  manner  as  the  ordinary  stock, 
and  were  shipped  into  the  Eastern  market, 
where  they  brought  the  highest  prices. 

Innumerable  instances  might  be  cited 
in  addition  to  the  foregoing  which  show 
the  satisfactory  results  of  feeding  the 
wild,  thorny  cactus,  aside  from  the  dis- 
advantages occasioned  by  thorns. 


10 


Luther   Burbank   Among  His   Thor  nless  Cactus  Plants  at  Santa  Rosa 


The  Results  of  Luther  Burbank's  Work 
on  the  Thorny  Cactus 


Mr.  Burbank  early  perceived  the  tre- 
mendous possibilities  of  a  cactus  without 
thorns  developed  to  a  commercial  state 
and  set  about  the  task  of  producing 
such  a  spineless  or  thornless  cactus.  He 
has  more  than  accomplished  the  aims  he 
had  in  mind  when  seventeen  or  eighteen 
years  ago  he  first  conceived  the  idea  of 
developing  the  wild,  thorny  cactus  into 
a  satisfactory  and  easily  handled  forage. 
The  Burbank  Spineless  Cactus,  consider- 
ed in  all  its  possibilities,  is  superior  to 
any  forage  grown  on  the  face  of  the  earth. 

The  economic  effect  of  Mr.  Burbank's 
achievement  in  taking  the  wild,  thorny 
cactus  and  turning  it  into  a  remarkable 
forage  plant  cannot  be  overestimated.  In 


summing   up   briefly  what   Mr.   Burbank 
has  accomplished  may  be  stated : 

First.  The  feeding  of  the  wild,  thorny 
cactus  in  itself  is  beyond  the  experimental 
stage,  having  been  extensively  utilized  for 
hundreds  of  years  in  the  various  parts  of 
the  world  as  a  forage,  for  all  classes  of 
livestock.  But  one  thing  prevented  its 
utilization  on  a  wider  scale,  namely,  the 
thorns  which  were  very  dangerous  and 
which  inflicted  injury  to  any  animal  that 
fed  thereon. 

Second.  Mr.  Burbank  has  removed 
this  obstacle.  He  has  produced  from  the 
wild,  thorny  cactus  a  cactus  which  is  de- 
void of  thorns. 

11 


Third.  He  has  also  increased  the  food 
value  of  the  Burbank  Spineless  Cactus 
very  materially. 

Fourth.  He  has  also  developed  enor- 
mously the  productivity  of  the  cactus,  hav- 
ing, in  fact,  increased  the  productivity  in 
many  instances  over  tenfold. 

Fifth.  Mr.  Burbank  has  increased  the 
yield  of  fruit  very  greatly,  and  has  de- 
veloped the  sugar  content,  which  runs  as 
high  as  16  per  cent. 

These  results  are  all  achieved  without 
special  conditions  of  culture,  care  or  at- 
tention. 

The  remarkable  ability  of  the  Burbank 
Spineless  Cactus  to  thrive  with  very  lit- 
tle moisture  is  one  which  makes  millions 
of  acres  of  heretofore  unprofitable  land 
available  for  the  production  of  enormous 
crops  of  cactus  forage.  On  these  lands 
alfalfa  and  hay  could  not  produce  a  crop. 

The  value  of  land  is  fixed  by  its  pro- 
ductivity. This  means,  in  other  words, 
that  the  result  obtained  in  the  supporting 
or  feeding  of  livestock  from  a  given  acre 
of  land  establishes  the  value  of  that  acre. 
The  Burbank  Spineless  Cactus,  growing 
under  favorable  conditions,  will  produce 
enough  forage  without  irrigation  to  sup- 
port the  year  around  from  two  to  four 
cows  per  acre,  a  record  unequalled  by  any 
other  forage  crop. 

As  the  surrounding  conditions  become 
more  favorable,  the  productivity  of  the 
cactus  is  increased.  In  other  words,  cac- 


tus is  a  crop  that  is  adapted  to  both  cheap 
land  and  high-priced  land.  The  better 
the  soil  and  general  conditions,  the  greater 
the  yield. 

It  has  many  advantages  over  other 
crops,  the  chief  one  being  that  it  is  a  green 
succulent  forage  for  livestock  THE 
YEAR  ROUND.  It  does  not  have  to  be 
harvested  at  any  particular  season,  and  if 
immediate  use  is  not  contemplated,  the 
cactus  will  continue  to  grow  if  left  in  the 
field.  There  is  no  need  of  harvesting  and 
storing  as  would  be  the  case  with  any 
other  forage  crop. 

Spineless  Cactus  is  something  which  is 
new,  and  on  account  of  this  there  are  very 
few  who  have  had  extended  experience  in 
handling  or  caring  for  the  cactus,  there- 
fore it  is  inadvisable  to  accept  the  advice 
of  those  pretending  to  be  informed,  but 
whose  knowledge  is  limited.  Those  who 
plant  cactus  are  urged  to  read  carefully 
the  instructions  covering  the  culture  and 
the  handling  of  the  cactus  as  set  forth  in 
this  book,  which  have  been  prepared  un- 
der the  general  direction  of  Mr.  Burbank, 
who  is  the  creator  and  only  recognized 
authority  on  the  Burbank  Spineless  Cac- 
tus. Cactus  is  not  like  any  other  plant, 
therefore  it  cannot  be  handled  like  the 
average  plant  or  as  the  judgment  might 
dictate.  The  care  and  culture  of  cactus, 
while  very  different  from  the  ordinary 
plants,  yet  is  so  simple  that  one  following 
directions  should  have  little  difficulty  in 
obtaining  satisfactory  results. 


"That  the  millions  of  acres  of  desert  land 
overgrown  with  cactus  may  be  made  a  source 
of  large  revenue,  seems  almost  incredible,  but 
stranger  things  have  happened.  Unless  Burbank 
be  badly  mistaken,  the  spineless  cactus  is  destin- 
ed to  become  one  of  the  most  useful  of  plants, 
furnishing  abundance  of  food  for  man  and  beast 
in  regions  which  have  been,  regarded  as  too 
sterile  and  desolate  for  any  form  of  stock  raising 
or  farming.  And  the  profitable  conversion  of 
the  common  form  of  the  plant  into  alcohol  seems 
even  better  assured." — "The  Sacramento  (Cal.) 
Bee." 


"The  production  of  these  new  spineless  fruit- 
ing cacti  is,  in  my  opinion,  as  important  to  the 


world  as  the  discovery  of  a  new  continent." — 
Judge  S.  F.  L.,  San  Jose,  Cal. 


RESTORING  THE  LAND 
There  is  every  prospect  that  before  the  life's 
work  of  Luther  Burbank  has  ended  he  will  have 
seen  thousands  of  square  miles  of  desert  lands 
of  the  world  trained  to  a  profitable  condition  of 
fertility  through  the  medium  of  his  spineless 
cactus.  The  Britsh  government  is  considering 
the  feasibility  of  introducing  Mr.  Burbank's 
hybrid  plant  in  the  Sahara  desert,  with  a  view  of 
eventually  forcing  the  most  unprolific  district  in 
the  world  to  support  life. — "Register-Leader," 
Des  Moines,  Iowa. 


12 


Where  Cactus  Can  be  Successfully  Grown 


Map  of  Globe,  Where  Spinaless  Cactus  Can  Be  Grown 


Cactus  can  be  grown  close  in  along  the 
coast  of  California,  south  to  San  Diego, 
in  the  great  valleys  of  California,  in  a 
considerable  part  of  Southern  Arizona, 
Southern  New  Mexico,  Southern  Texas, 
Southern  Louisiana  and  all  along  the  Gulf 
and  Atlantic  Coast  of  the  United  States 
well  up  to  South  Carolina  for  about  one 
hundred  miles  inland,  more  or  less,  ac- 
cording to  elevation  and  other  factors.  In 
a  general  way,  this  is  the  part  of  the 
United  States  best  adapted  for  cactus 
culture. 

Maps  of  the  Globe  with  cross  lines  in- 
dicating the  northern  and  southern  limits 


for  the  successful  cultivation  of  the  new 
Giant  Burbank  Cactus  plants  for  fruit  and 
forage ;  it  will  be  observed  that  the  whole 
continents  of  Africa  and  Australia,  most 
of  South  America  and  the  southern  part 
of  North  America,  Southern  Europe  and 
Asia  and  most  of  the  thousands  of  islands 
of  the  seas  are  included  in  the  territory 
where  they  can  be  grown ;  even  this  great 
territory,  including  more  than  three- 
fourths  of  the  inhabitable  land  of  the 
earth  is  being  somewhat  extended  by  the 
production  of  hardier  varieties.  This  work 
is  progressing  slowly  but  very  surely. 


"Burbank's  thornless  cactus  is  certainly  prov- 
ing itself  to  be  the  modern  vegetable  marvel. 
Nothing1  like  it  has  ever  been  produced  before. 
Its  vitality  surpasses  the  limit  of  belief,  for  noth- 
ing in  the  vegetable  world  has  ever  shown  such 
wonderful  resistant  capacity,  such  reproductive 
powers,  such  exuberance  of  growth." — "Stand- 
ard," Eureka^  Cal. 


"On  one  of  our  experimental  farms,  in  this 
state,  we  have  some  of  Mr.  Burbank's  thornless 
cactus  growing  side  by  side  with  the  best  varie- 
ties of  the  government's  thornless  cactus,  dis- 
tributed last  spring. 

"The  rate  of  increase  on  the  part  of  the  poorest 
of  the  Burbank  cactus  as  compared  to  the  best 
of  the  government  cactus  is  about  fifteen  to  one." 
— "Enterprise,"  Silver  City,  N.  M. 


13 


The  Spineless  Cactus  for  Forage 

For  all  Livestock  Including  Poultry 


The  leaves  or  slabs  of  the  spineless 
cactus  are  used  for  food  for  all  kinds  of 
stock  including  poultry.  The  whole  plant, 
both  the  leaves  and  the  fruit,  almost 
without  exception,  finds  immediate  favor 
with  all  herbiverous  animals. 

They  actually  prefer  it  to  almost  any 
other  food.  More  than  that,  it  makes  a 
superior  quality  of  beef  and  exceedingly 
rich  milk.  This  is  not  surprising  as  the 
cactus  is  one  of  the  richest  foods  known 
in  sodium,  potash  and  magnesium,  which 
are  the  principal  salts  found  in  milk. 

These  valuable  organic  salts  are  found 
in  the  cactus  more  abundantly  than  in 
any  other  food. 


The  fact  is  often  observed  that  ani- 
mals, when  fed  on  cactus,  improve  in  con- 
dition more  than  can  be  accounted  for  by 
the  usual  chemical  analysis  for  food 
values.  It  has  been  a  matter  of  much 
study  by  chemists  until  it  was  discovered 
by  actual  experiment  that  the  organic 
mineral  salts,  known  as  sodium,  potash 
and  magnesia  aided  in  the  digestion  of 
food,  which  was  not  otherwise  assimi- 
lated and  utilized  by  the  animal. 

"The  Burbank  Spineless  Cactus  will 
prove  especially  valuable  in  feeding  dairy 
cattle,  as  it  will  furnish  a  succulent  feed 
throughout  the  entire  year,  so  that  an 
even  flow  of  milk  can  be  obtained. 


A  Single  Burbank  Spineless  Cactus  Plant 


"When  fed  with  a  little  cotton-seed  meal 
or  other  concentrated  food  or  used  with 
about  fifteen  pounds  of  good  alfalfa  hay, 
it  will  prove  the  ideal  feed  by  which  dairy- 
men may  obtain  the  same  quantity  and 
quality  of  milk  in  January  as  in  June. 

"Even  now,  the  best  butter  is  being 
made  from  dairy  herds  fed  on  singed  wild 
cactus  with  only  three  or  four  pounds  of 
cotton-seed  meal  per  day  or  its  equivalent ; 
while  some  of  the  best  beef  cattle  have 


been  fattened  on  the  same  rations,  and 
sheep,  hogs  and  calves  are  being  prepared 
for  the  market  on  an  exclusive  cactus 
diet." 

As  cattle  always  follow  feed,  there 
should  be  an  ever-present  market  for  cac- 
tus forage  wherever  it  is  grown.  Besides, 
as  the  different  varieties  of  cactus  mature 
fruit  from  September  to  March,  they  en- 
joy a  season  of  exceptional  shipping  ad- 
vantages. 


There  is  the  further  consideration  that 
the  cactus  supplies  the  animal  with  al- 
most all  the  water  it  needs. 

In  Hawaii  and  Mexico,  cattle  have  been 
known  to  subsist  for  six  months  on  a 
cactus  diet  without  a  drop  of  water. 


THRIVE   ON   DRINKLESS   RANCH 

Animals  on  Millionaire's  Place  in  Hawaii  Don't 
Know  Taste  of  Water 

KANSAS  CITY,  Jan.  20. — "I  have  horses  on 
my  ranch  that  do  not  know  what  water  is,  and 
will  not  drink  it  if  it  is  brought  before  them. 
They  have  never  tasted  water.  I  have  good  fat 
cattle  that  have  never  seen  water  and  would 
not  know  how  to  act  if  water  touched  them.  I 
have  other  cattle  that  I  have  imported  from  the 
United  States  which  have  not  tasted  a  drop  of 
water  since  being  turned  out  on  my  cactus  and 
blue  grass  pastures.  They  have  lived  for  years 
without  water  and  are  as  fat  as  any  grass-fed 
cattle  in  the  United  States.  They  make  just  as 
good  beef  as  you  can  get  in  any  restaurant." 

These  statements  were  made  in  sober  earnest 
by  Robert  Hind,  millionaire  sugar  planter  and 
ranchman  of  Honolulu. 

When  water  holes  go  dry  on  our  own  Western 
ranges,  cattle  men  hurry  their  stock  out  of  the 
country.  The  price  of  beef  on  the  hoof  goes  down 
and  the  price  of  meat  goes  up.  Dry  years  mean 
panic  among  the  owners  of  cattle,  and  the  owner 
of  pure-breds  in  the  United  States  would  not 
think  of  buying  a  $1000  bull  and  putting  him  on 
a  ranch  that  had  neither  stream,  spring  nor  well 
on  it.  He  would  die  of  thirst  in  less  than  a  week. 

Mr.  Hind  has  bought  six  valuable  bulls.     He 


will  buy  several  more  before  he  returns  to  his 
island  ranch.  And  when  he  does  take  the  animals 
back  he  will  turn  them  loose  in  a  pasture  of 
cactus  and  blue  grass,  growing  upon  volcanic  soil, 
in  which  there  is  absolutely  no  water  for  drink- 
ing purposes.  And  the  animals  will  thrive  as 
others  of  their  kind  have  thrived,  which  Mr. 
Hind  brought  here  a  year  ago. 

"America  is  letting  a  lot  of  unsalable  land  lie 
idle  in  what  are  now  barren  wastes,"  said  Mr. 
Hind.  *  *  *  Just  think  of  the  possibilities 
in  the  millions  of  acres  of  unused  and  supposedly 
unsalable  land  in  your  country. 

"We  have  imported  blue  grass  from  Kentucky 
and  orchard  grass  from  other  parts  of  the  United 
States,  and  our  cattle  live  for  a  good  part  of  the 
year  on  these  grasses  without  water,  so  luxuriant- 
ly do  they  grow  and  so  much  moisture  do  they 
contain.  When  it  becomes  exceedingly  dry  and 
the  grasses  are  not  doing  well,  we  turn  the  cattle 
and  horses  into  cactus  pastures.  I  have  kept 
one  lot  of  seventy-five  cattle  in  a  twenty-acre 
pasture  of  cactus  for  three  months,  and  they 
are  doing  well.  They  put  on  flesh  just  as  cattle 
do  in  your  luxuriant  Missouri  pastures,  but  my 
cattle  are  without  water. 

"The  fruit  of  the  spineless  cactus  is  much  like 
that  of  the  prickly  pear  in  America,  but  is  larger. 
We  fatten  our  pigs,  chickens  and  turkeys  on  it. 
Any  domestic  animal  in  Hawaii  will  eat  it,  and 
it  is  a  great  flesh  producer." 

Mr.  Hind  started  as  a  sugar  planter  and  made 
a  fortune.  Then  he  bought  a  few  thousand  acres 
next  to  his  plantation  and  imported  Herefords, 
Shorthorns  and  Polled  Angus  .cattle  from  New 
Zealand.  That  was  ten  years  ago.  He  now  has 
sold  all  his  cattle,  except  Hereford  and  Polled 
Angus.  He  has  2500  cattle,  2000  sheep  and  a 
large  number  of  horses  on  his  ranch  now.  He 
handles  nothing  but  pure-bred  stock. — Kansas 
City  Times. 

15 


A  Demonstration  of  the  Superiority  of  Cactus  as 

a  Feed  for  Cows 


Result   of   Feeding  Burbank   Spineless    Cactus  at   the    Certified 
Owned  by  H.  R.   Timm  at  Dixon,    California 


Dairy 


Aff&autt 


2,  1912 

3,  1912 

4,  1912 

5,  1912 

6,  1912 

7,  1912 

8,  1912 

9,  1912 

10,  1912 

11,  1912 
12, 1912 


Milk 
Lbs. 

37 
36 

34^ 


42 

44 

45 

47 

46 

45% 

43% 


Cactus 
Lbs. 
10 
22 
38 
67 
75 
75 
72 
76 
74 
76 
80 


The  above  is  the  result  of  a  test  in  the 
feeding  of  Burbank  Spineless  Cactus  to  a 
dairy  cow,  made  at  the  H.  R.  Timm  Dairy, 
Dixon,  Cal.  The  test  was  made  during  a 
period  of  ten  days  to  find  out  the  real 
value  of  cactus  as  a  milk-producing  food. 

As  the  dairy  herd  was  being  fed  on  the 
best  kind  of  green  alfalfa  and  alfalfa  hay, 
it  would  hardly  be  expected  that  a  cow 
would  increase  in  milk  when  cactus  was 
substituted  for  the  green  feed.  On  Sep- 
tember 2,  the  cow  was  taken  from  the  herd 
and  placed  on  a  ration  of  cactus  and  bar- 
ley, and  a  light  feed  of  alfalfa  hay.  With- 


in four  or  five  days  she  ate  it  without  any 
grain  and  soon  reached  a  gain  of  ten 
pounds  of  milk  daily. 

I  consider  it  a  splendid  substitute  for 
green  alfalfa  when  fed  with  a  small 
amount  of  alfalfa  hay.  And  I  consider  it 
doubly  valuable  as  a  cow  food  on  account 
of  the  fact  that  it  can  be  harvested  and 
fed  during  the  winter  months  when  there 
is  no  other  green  feed. 

H.  R.  TIMM. 

NOTE  :  Mr.  Timm  is  the  president  of 
the  First  National  Bank  of  Dixon  and  the 
owner  of  one  of  the  largest  and  best  cer- 
tified dairies  in  the  West. 
State  of  California, 

County  of  Solano — ss. 
H.  R.  Timm,  being  first  duly  sworn,  de- 
poses and  says:  I  have  read  the  attached 
statement  of  facts  and  know  the  contents 
thereof,  and  desire  to  state  that  the  same 
are  true  to  my  own  knowledge,  informa- 
tion and  belief. 

Subscribed  to  and  sworn  to  before  me 
this  3rd  day  of  December,  1912. 

H.  R.  TIMM. 

WINFIELD  R.  MADDEN,  Notary  Pub- 
lic in  and  for  Solano  County,  California. 


16 


100  Tons  of  Spineless  Cactus  Forage  Per  Acre  Per  Year.     Field  Scene  at  Santa  Rosa 


The  Annual  Yield 


In  the  summer  of  1906  in  the  coast  cli- 
mate of  Sonoma  County,  California,  on 
the  black  heavy  adobe,  a  soil  thought 
wholly  unsuitable  for  cactus,  there  was 
produced  an  average  of  forty-seven  and 
one-half  pounds  per  plant  in  six  months' 
growth,  from  single  rooted  leaves.  These 
yielded  180,230  pounds  or  over  ninety 
tons  of  forage  per  acre. 

One  may  reasonably  expect,  under  fa- 
vorable conditions,  to  obtain  a  yield  up  to 
100  tons  of  good  forage  per  acre  per  year. 


The  Spineless  Opuntias  will  produce 
nearly  double  as  much  feed  the  third  and 
succeeding  years  as  they  do  the  second 
season  of  planting. 

Of  course,  it  would  not  be  expected 
that  there  would  be  more  than  one-fourth 
of  the  above  yield  on  desert  soil  without 
irrigation.  Still  there  could  be  expected 
almost  twice  as  much,  as  mentioned 
above,  where  the  climate  is  warm  and 
where  there  are  one  or  two  light  irriga- 
tions each  season. 

17 


Of  Easy  Culture  and  Rapid  Growth 

Burbank's  Spineless  Cactus  Always  Grown 
from  Cuttings,  Never  by  Seeds 


Everybody  knows  that  Baldwin  apples, 
Bartlett  pears  and  our  favorite  peaches, 
plums  and  cherries  can  not  be  raised  from 
seeds;  just  the  same  laws  hold  true  with 
the  improved  Opuntias,  but  fortunately 
they  can  be  raised  from  cuttings  in  any 
quantity  with  the  utmost  ease — more 
truly  they  raise  themselves,  for  when 
broken  from  the  parent  plant,  the  cuttings 
attend  to  rooting  without  further  atten- 
tion, whether  planted  right  end  up,  bot- 
tom up,  sideways  or  not  at  all. 

Best  results  are  generally  secured  by 
planting  the  lower  half  of  the  cuttings 
below  the  surface  of  well-prepared,  dry, 
warm  soil  or  sand. 

No  form  of  plant  life  perhaps  responds 
more  readily  to  kindly  treatment  than  the 
Opuntia.  This  is  demonstrated  in  the 
faster,  heavier  and  generally  better 
growth  possible  through  a  moderate 
amount  of  cultivation,  the  keeping  down 
of  grass  and  weeds,  during  the  earlier 
periods  of  growth.  Larger  yields  of  finer 
fruit  and  more  and  tenderer  pads  are  the 


result  of  proper  treatment.  It  is  but  natu- 
ral that  under  distressing  conditions,  due 
to  the  lack  of  proper  care,  some  varieties, 
especially  fruiting  varieties,  may  develop 
a  few  short  spines  on  the  edge  of  a  slab 
or  rarely  one  here  and  there,  but  these 
generally  will  be  found,  if  at  all,  to  be  soft 
and  cottony  and  so  insignificant  as  to  be 
harmless.  What  spines  do  appear  as  a 
general  thing  will  drop  off  as  the  plant 
grows  older. 

People  who  are  not  acquainted  with  the 
cactus  often  mistake  the  numerous  point- 
ed leaflets  on  the  undeveloped  slabs  for 
spines.  These,  having  no  function  to  per- 
form, soon  drop  off.  They  are  as  different 
from  spines  as  blossoms  are  from  leaves. 

The  leaves  of  these  new  Giant  cactus 
varieties  should  be  shrunken  slightly  or 
wilted  at  least  (except  in  absolutely  dry 
deserts  or  in  very  warm  summer  weath- 
er). Meantime,  an  earlier  and  more  rapid 
growth  will  be  secured  by  plowing  and 
harrowing  the  land  as  for  any  other  crop. 


Comparative  Value  of  Cactus  Forage 


There  is  not  any  particular  price  for 
cactus  forage,  simply  because  there  is  not 
any  for  sale.  And  yet  the  question  is 
often  asked,  what  it  is  worth?  The  best 
answer  that  we  can  give  is  that  where 


one  acre  of  land  will  produce  enough  feed 
for  one  cow,  the  cactus  plant  will  grow 
enough  feed  for  four.  In  other  words,  it 
is  four  times  the  feeding  value  in  quan- 
tity and  quality  of  alfalfa. 


Is  man  also  to  redeem  the  desert  for  civiliza- 
tion? The  French  will  test  Burbank's  spineless 
cactus  on  Sahara  and  the  desert  islands  of 
Mayotte,  off  Madagascar,  and  the  English  and 
Germans  will  try  its  virtues  in  their  South 
African  possessions.  Burbank's  creation  is  de- 
clared to  be  palatable  not  only  to  cattle,  but  to 

18 


man,  and  it  thrives  on  areas  that  are  hopelessly 
arid,  provided  there  be  plenty  of  heat  and  light. 
It  would  be  an  almost  crowning  achievement  if, 
by  his  genius,  man,  after  these  thousands  of 
years  w«re  able  to  announce  the  doom  of  the 
desert. — "Journal,"  Portland,  Ore. 


The  Kind  of  Climate  and  Land  Needed 
for  Cactus  Culture 


Climate 

Cactus  will  not  thrive  where  the 
ground  freezes  over  an  inch  in  depth  or 
where  the  temperature  stands  as  low  as 
fifteen  degrees  above  zero  for  any  great 
period.  Extreme  heat  is  not  of  serious 
consequence. 

About  six  to  eight  inches  of  rainfall 
are  required  for  the  best  cactus  culture, 
although  cactus  will  do  well  on  three  to 
five  inches  per  season. 

It   is    not   necessary   that   the    rainfall 


should  be  regular.  The  precipitation  of 
rain  can  be  once  in  four  years  or  even  as 
infrequent  as  once  in  ten  years. 

The  Kind  of  Land 

Cactus  plants  do  not  necessarily  re- 
quire rich  land.  The  climate  conditions 
are  more  important  than  the  soil. 

The  land  need  not  be  what  is  generally 
denominated  fruit  or  agricultural  land. 

Cactus  will  stand  as  much  white  alkali 
as  any  plant  which  grows. 


A  Field  of  Young  Spineless  Cactus  Plants 


19 


Burbank  Cactus  Leaf  and  Fruit 


The  New  Burbank  Cactus  for  Fruit 


The  old  thorny  varieties  of  the  fruiting 
cactus  are  too  well  known  to  need  de- 
scription. The  fruits  are  the  principal 
food  for  millions  of  people  during  three 
or  four  months  each  year.  The  fruits  of 
the  Burbank  Fruiting  Cactus  are  greatly 
superior  to  the  old  kinds,  and  can  be 
raised  for  one-tenth  the  cost  of  producing 
other  fruits. 

The  fresh  fruit  of  these  improved  varie- 
ties is  unique  in  form  and  color,  exceed- 
ingly handsome,  unusually  wholesome 
(the  large  amount  of  vegetable  salts  they 
contain  being  regarded  as  very  beneficial), 
and  far  superior  to  the  banana  in  flavor. 
There  is  never  a  failure  in  the  crop,  which 
can  be  shipped  as  safely  as  the  other  de- 
ciduous fruits.  The  fruit  can  be  gathered 
and  stored  like  apples,  and  some  kinds 
will  keep  in  excellent  condition  from  four 
to  five  months.  Samples  packed  in  or- 
dinary packing  boxes  without  ice,  were 
shipped  to  Chicago,  New  York,  Boston 
and  Washington  and  kept  in  perfect  con- 
dition. 

20 


Most  delicious  jams,  jellies,  syrups,  etc., 
in  enormous  quantities,  at  a  nominal  cost, 
are  made  from  the  fruits  alone  or  in  com- 
bination with  other  fruits,  besides  various 
foods  and  confections,  such  as  Tuna 
honey  (Miel  de  Tuna),  Tuna  butter 
(Melcocha),  and  Tuna  cheese  (Queso). 

Opuntias  have  been  used  (even  the 
thorny  ones),  for  making  confectionery 
by  the  Mexicans  and  others  for  a  long 
time.  Some  of  the  finest  candies  of  Mex- 
ico are  candied  cacti  of  various  forms. 

The  juice  from  the  fruits  of  the  crimson 
varieties  is  used  for  coloring  ices,  jelly 
and  confectionery;  no  more  beautiful 
colors  can  be  imagined. 

For  the  old  fruiting,  Opuntias  or  Prickly 
Pears,  eighteen  thousand  pounds  of  fruit 
per  acre  is  found  to  be  a  common  crop  on 
the  poorest  soils,  while  on  good  soils  the 
best  Burbank  fruiting  varieties  will  and 
have  produced  at  the  rate  of  more  than 
one  hundred  thousand  pounds  of  delicious 
fruit  per  acre.  The  fruits  differ  in  various 
ways  like  apples,  plums  or  peaches.  By 


Burbank  Cactus  in  Fruit 


analysis  they  are  found  to  contain  from 
six  to  fourteen  per  cent  sugar,  besides  a 
small  amount  of  protein  and  fat,  also 
aromas  and  flavors.  Some  contain  more 
of  these,  some  less;  all  desirable  quali- 
ties are  grealy  increased  by  scientific 
breeding  and  selection  for  this  purpose,  as 
with  the  apple,  peach,  sugar  beet  and 
other  fruits,  grains  and  vegetables. 

Some  of  the  earlier  varieties  ripen  in 
June  and  July,  the  later  ones  in  August, 
September,  October  and  November  and 
through  the  winter.  Most  of  them  com- 


mence bearing  about  the  third  year  from 
cuttings. 

The  general  practice  to  prepare  the  fruit 
for  use  is  by  brushing  with  a  whisk  broom 
or  rubbing  with  a  coarse  cloth,  then  cut- 
ting a  thin  slice  from  each  end  through 
the  skin,  then  slitting  from  end  to  end 
when  the  skin  may  be  readily  removed, 
leaving  the  solid,  sweet  flesh  ready  for 
use;  another  way  is  to  slice  through  the 
center  of  the  fruit  from  end  to  end  and 
remove  the  flesh  with  a  spoon. 


"It  can  be  safely  said  without  fear  of  con- 
tradiction that  the  prophecies  of  Luther  Burbank 
regarding  spineless  cactus  are  being  fully  realiz- 
ed—and that  it  is  now  taking  its  place  at  the 


head  of  all  forage  plants  as  a  stock  and  dairy 
feed  in  our  Western  arid  and  semi- arid  States, 
as  well  as  poultry  feed  and  a  luscious  fruit  for 
our  tables,  second  to  none." 

21 


How  to  grow  the  Burbank  Spineless  Cactus 

Full  Cultural  Directions 


WHAT  TO  PLANT— CUTTINGS  OR 

SEEDS 

Cactus  should  always  be  raised  from 
cuttings,  never  under  any  circumstances 
from  seed,  as  it  always  runs  back  to  the 
thorny  kind  when  grown  from  seed,  but 
never  when  grown  from  cuttings.  It  has 
been  proved  time  and  time  again  in  thou- 
sands and  thousands  of  cases  that  the 
new  spineless  cactus  does  not  run  back  to 
the  thorny  state  any  more  than  a  Baldwin 
apple  can  change  to  a  Ben  Davis  or  a 
Bartlett  pear  to  a  wild  pear. 

WHERE  TO  PLANT 

These  new  spineless  cacti  can  be  plant- 
ed in  any  part  of  the  earth  where  the  ther- 
mometer does  not  go  lower  than  15  de- 
grees above  zero  and  where  the  rainfall  is 
not  over  40  or  60  inches.  In  localities 
where  the  rainfall  is  continuous  and  heavy 
the  cactus  sometimes  suffers  from  decay 
of  the  leaves.  It  is  not  in  any  way  par- 
ticular as  to  soil,  growing  in  any  soil  in 
which  any  other  plant  will  grow  if  it  is 
not  too  wet.  Good  agricultural  land,  like 
corn  land  or  vineyard  land,  is  especially 
good,  and  will,  of  course,  produce  a  larger 
crop  than  poorer  land.  Temperature  and 
moisture  are  the  two  important  matters  to 
look  after;  soil  is  of  little  consequence 
compared  with  these. 


WHEN  TO  PLANT 

Cactus  should  never  be  planted,  trans- 
planted or  moved  during  rainy  winter 
weather,  which  is  just  the  time  to  plant 
nearly  all  other  trees  and  plants.  If 
planted  at  this  season  they  very  promptly 
decay,  especially  if  it  happens  to  be  cold 
at  the  same  time  that  it  is  damp.  The 
two  together  are  death  to  the  cactus  when 
moved  at  such  seasons  and  under  such 
conditions.  The  best  months  for  planting 
are  the  warm  dry  months  extending  in 
Central  California  from  April  to  Novem- 
ber. The  actual  seasonal  conditions  gov- 
ern always.  Planting  after  November  is 
satisfactory  when  there  is  little  rainfall, 
and  much  sunshine  and  the  land  is  dry. 

HOW  TO  PLANT 

The  cuttings  consist  of  slabs,  sometimes 
called  leaves.  These  weigh  from  two  to 
five  pounds,  according  to  variety.  It  is  al- 
ways best  to  plant  a  whole  slab.  While 
those  that  are  divided  will  sometimes 
grow  fairly  well,  it  is  not  economy  to 
divide  them.  Better  results  are  always 
obtained  by  planting  whole  slabs.  As  be- 
fore stated,  this  must  be  done  during  the 
warm  months.  Every  slab,  if  properly 


CACTUS   ERA   INEVITABLE 


"The  cactus  area  is  just  opening.  Ten  or 
twenty  years  hence,  many  well-informed  men  be- 
lieve the  cactus  will  have  supplanted  and  dis- 
placed alfalfa  throughout  a  great  erea  of  the 
civilized  world.  Why?  .Because  the  cactus  will 
grow  with  little  or  no  irrigation,  upon  any  kind 
of  soil,  with  infinitely  less  attention  than  alfalfa 
must  have,  and  will  produce  far  greater  results 
in  yield  of  fodder. 

"The  romance  and  marvel  of  the  Burbank  Cac- 
tus would  fill  a  large  book.  The  story  of  the 
sixteen  years  of  patient  effort  employed  by  that 
wonder-worker,  Luther  Burbank,  justly  calls  for 
a  place  in  literature. 

"Imagine,  if  you  please,  a  man  collecting  the 
cacti  of  the  world,  selecting  from  all  of  these 
varieties  the  best,  then  growing  millions  of  seed- 
lings, crossing  and  recrossing  them,  selecting  and 
reselecting  and,  finally,  after  sixteen  years  tri- 

22 


umphantly  evolving  from  this  patient,  laborious 
process  and  from  millions  of  discarded  cacti, 
seven  plants  which  were  not  only  free  from 
spines,  but  which  possessed  the  growing  and  feed- 
ing values  for  which  he  had  so  long  striven. 
This,  in  a  nutshell,  is  what  Luther  Burbank  did 
with  the  cactus.  Sometimes  out  of  100,000  seed- 
lings he  destroyed  99,999.  The  remaining  in- 
dividual he  watched  and  tended  as  carefully  as  a 
mother  her  nursing  babe.  Patience,  infinite  pa- 
tience, had  to  be  added  to  the  Burbank  genius, 
the  truly  Spineless  Cactus. 

"Of  those  anxious  ones  who  have  endeavored 
to  detract  from  the  merit  of  this,  the  greatest 
of  the  Burbank  triumphs,  we  will  say  nothing. 
The  Burbank  Thornless  Cactus  speaks  for  itself. 
It  will,  by  its  wonder-working  accomplishments, 
best  answer  all  critics,  whether  malicious  or  igno- 
rant."—Ex. 


planted  and  not  irrigated,  will  root  in  from 
four  to  six  weeks,  promptly,  surely  and 
without  fail,  if  properly  treated.  Unlike 
all  other  plants,  it  is  best  that  the  cuttings 
should  be  wilted  a  little,  though  in  hot 
weather  they  will  grow  without  wilting. 
They  can  be  wilted  in  any  ordinary  warm 
climate  if  placed  flat  on  the  ground  where 
the  sun  does  not  strike  them  from  11  to 
2,  or  any  little  shade  which  protects  them 
from  the  burning,  fiery  heat  of  the  mid- 
day sun.  When  the  parts  that  have  been 
cut  in  removing  from  the  old  plant  have 
become  dry  and  seared  over,  they  may  be 
planted  at  once,  one-third  under  the 
ground  and  two-thirds  above,  either 
straight  up  or  slanting  at  any  angle.  This 
is  absolutely  all  that  is  necessary  in  plant- 
ing cactus.  If  the  cuttings  happen  to 
be  a  little  bruised  in  shipping,  the  bruis- 
ed places  should  be  cut  away  and  during 
the  summer  time  will  heal  over  at  once. 
In  the  winter  time  such  bruised  places 
will  promptly  decay. 

PREPARING  THE  GROUND 

Any  kind  of  soil  will  do  for  the  cactus, 
though  as  with  all  other  plants,  the  better 
it  is  the  better  they  will  grow.  The 
ground  should  be  plowed  and  harrowed 
and  allowed  to  become  quite  dry  on  the 
surface  before  the  cuttings  are  planted. 
In  planting  the  cutting,  it  is  well  to  dig 
out  all  moist  earth  with  a  trowel  or  spade, 
and  to  have  dry  dirt  around  the  lower  part 
of  the  cuttings,  as  they  root  much  quicker 
in  dry  dirt  than  in  moist,  strange  as  it  may 
appear.  Many  failures  of  cactus  cuttings 
have  been  caused  by  planting  in  too  damp 
soil,  or  irrigating  too  soon  after  they  are 
planted.  In  planting  for  forage  it  is  well 
to  make  double  rows  three  feet  apart,  and 
these  double  rows  should  be  about  ten 
or  twelve  feet  apart  and  in  these  double 
rows  the  cactus  should  be  planted  alter- 
nately, as  in  this  way  they  help  to  hold 
each  other  up  better  and  have  more  room 
to  grow,  especially  while  young.  Cactus 
may  be  planted  on  hillsides  in  very  hot 
climates  on  the  north  sides.  They  thrive 
best  on  the  south  sides  in  cold  climates. 
The  cactus  is  especially  valuable  as  an 
adjunct  to  alfalfa,  as  it  will  grow  on  ordi- 
nary land  with  a  very  small  amount  of 
water,  where  alfalfa  would  be  sure  to  die 
out.  Under  such  conditions,  the  cactus 


will  thrive  where  alfalfa  cannot  be  grown. 
Nothing  can  be  superior  to  the  cactus  for 
this  purpose,  as  it  improves  year  by  year. 
Cactus  should  never  be  planted  in  the 
shade  or  wet  land.  In  some  cases,  where 
there  is  an  extreme  cold  spell  of  weather 
the  tips  of  the  leaves  will  sometimes 
freeze.  When  thus  frozen  all  the  de- 
cayed parts  should  be  cut  away  as  soon 
as  possible,  and  as  soon  as  a  sunny  day 
comes  the  plants  will  heal  over  and  no  fur- 
ther damage  will  be  done,  while  if  the  de- 
cayed portions  are  left  on  the  plants  a  part 
or  the  whole  plant  may  sooner  or  later  be 
involved  with  the  decay. 

COST  OF  SETTING  OUT  SPINELESS 
CACTUS 

In  Europe  cactus  has  been  set  out  by 
hand  labor,  and  the  cost  is  estimated  to 
be  about  $5.00  per  acre. 

One  man  can  set  out  1,000  slabs  a  day 
in  ground  previously  well  prepared.  In  a 
country  where  traction  engines  can  be 
used  and  large  tracts  set  out,  the  cost 
would  not  exceed  $5.00  per  acre. 

CULTIVATION 

Cultivation  during  the  first  season  or 
two  is  of  advantage  to  cactus,  especially 
on  dry  ground.  Irrigation  is  barely  per- 
missible after  they  get  a  good  start,  but 
not  until  they  are  well  rooted.  Cactus  will 
thrive  with  one  tenth  the  water  which  al- 
falfa requires. 

WHEN  TO  HARVEST 
One  of  the  principal  features  of  the 
cactus  is  that  they  can  be  allowed  to  grow 
year  after  year  until  needed  in  a  dry  sea- 
son, or  in  case  of  a  shortage  of  feed,  then 
can  be  harvested  by  the  wholesale.  On 
good  land  more  tons  of  it  can  be  obtained 
per  acre  than  on  five  to  ten  acres  of  other 
forage.  In  harvesting  for  ordinary,  reg- 
ular feeding,  it  is  well  to  cut  off  the  top 
and  side  leaves  with  a  long  knife,  hatchet 
or  other  tool,  and  feed  to  the  stock  as 
needed.  It  may  be  fed  at  any  season  of 
the  year  without  regard  to  season — sum- 
mer or  winter,  spring  or  fall. 

YIELD 

The  yield  of  the  cactus  depends  greatly 
upon  the  variety.  The  common  wild  cac- 
tus yield  all  the  way  from  five  to  twenty 
tons  per  acre  the  third  year.  Some  of  the 
new  ones  will  yield  ten  or  even  more  times 

23 


as  much.  The  first  season,  if  cuttings  are 
set  out  early  in  the  season,  say  June,  each 
should  make,  according  to  variety,  five  to 
ten  or  fifteen  new  cuttings.  The  second 
season  twice  as  many  as  that,  and  the 
third  season  three  times  as  many.  The 
cuttings  may  be  replanted  as  soon  as  they 
are  hard  and  thoroughly  ripened. 

HOW    TO    FEED    TO  LIVE    STOCK 

Cattle  or  any  kind  of  horned  stock  are 
especially  fond  of  the  cactus,  but  as  with 
all  other  new  feeds,  some  refuse  at  first, 
but  soon  learn  to  eat  it  greedily.  It  is 
best  fed  to  them  either  whole,  or  better 
still,  the  slabs  may  be  rapidly  run  through 
a  cutter  and  a  little  bran  or  sprinkling  of 
meal  will  induce  those  animals  to  eat 
it  that  do  not  at  first  understand  it.  Poul- 
try are  also  fond  of  it  and  will  eat  it  at 
once,  if  it  is  sprinkled  as  for  stock,  and 
afterwards  greedily  for  green  feed.  Hogs 
invariably  like  it  when  used  to  it.  It  is 
particularly  valuable  for  growing  animals 
and  for  milch  cows,  as  it  increases  the 
quantity  and  improves  the  flavor  of  milk 
at  once.  But  cactus,  like  almost  all  other 
food,  requires  other  food  with  it.  It  is 
quite  succulent  and  moist,  and  some  dry 
alfalfa  or  other  hay  is  excellent,  or  a  little 
oil  meal,  bran  or  even  dry  weeds.  It  has 
the  same  effect  on  cattle  or  growing  ani- 
mals as  green  feed  of  any  kind,  but  does 
not  bloat  animals  like  alfalfa. 

HARVEST 

There  is  no  occasion  to  harvest  the  cac- 
tus beforehand,  because  it  is  always  in 
good  condition.  There  is  no  occasion  for 
storing  it,  because  it  is  always  good  from 
January  1st  to  December  31st. 

Like  all  other  crops  that  are  worth  cul- 
tivating it  should  be  fenced.  No  crop 
worth  growing  can  be  grown  other- 
wise. If  it  is  good,  animals  soon  find 
it  out,  as  they  will  every  other  crop 
that  is  raised  for  them.  They  should  never 
be  turned  loose  in  the  cactus  patch;  no 
one  would  turn  stock  into  a  beet  or  pump- 
kin patch,  as  they  would  injure  the  plants. 
They  would  also  injure  cactus  plants,  for 
they  would  greedily  eat  their  tops,  stems, 
roots  and  branches. 

FRUITING  CACTUS 


Fruiting  cactus  is  planted  just  the  same 


A  Rooted  Cutting  with  Newly  Sprouted  Slabs 

as  forage  cactus,  except  that  it  should  be 
planted  a  little  wider  apart,  as  they  grow 
to  an  enormous  size  and  live  to  a  great 
age,  and  it  is  well  to  keep  them  pruned 
low.  They  will  spread  so  that  if  planted 
three  feet  apart  in  the  narrow  rows  and 
twelve  feet  apart  in  the  wide  rows  they 
can  be  harvested  most  conveniently.  The 
fruit  is  at  its  best  during  September,  Oc- 
tober and  November,  though  some  va- 
rieties continue  to  bear  throughout  the 
winter  and  spring,  in  fact,  throughout  the 
entire  year. 

HOW  TO  PREPARE  AND  EAT  THE 
FRUIT 

Do  not  handle  with  the  bare  hands. 
Take  each  fruit  on  a  fork  and  with  a  sharp 
knife  cut  off  both  ends,  and,  still  holding 
the  fruit  by  the  fork,  cut  through  the  peel 
avoiding  the  little  bundles  of  bristles ;  then 
with  the  knife  push  the  peel  from  the  oval- 
shaped  mass  of  pulp  within.  Cactus  fruit 
is  very  wholesome  and  nourishing  and  can 
be  eaten  in  great  quantities  with  benefit. 
The  seeds  are  to  be  swallowed  as  with  to- 
matoes. The  fruit  is  much  more  delic- 
ious when  cold. 


24 


House  of  Representatives,  United  States 
Part  of  Cong.  Record 

LUTHER  BURBANK  AND  HIS  WORK 

From  the  Speech  of 
Hon.   Everis   A.    Hayes 

of  California 
In  the  House  of  Representatives 

SPINELESS  CACTUS 

No  more  important  thing  has  recently  occurred 
in  agriculture  than  the  successful  production  of 
the  rapid-growing,  edible  spineless  cactus  by  Lu- 
ther Burbank.  After  sixteen  years  of  expensive 
and  costly  experimentation  he  has  produced  a  new 
and  most  valuable  cattle  food  for  the  world.  Mr. 
Burbank  does  not  claim  to  have  discovered  the 
spineless  cactus.  Some  varieties  of  this  plant 
have  been  known  for  years,  but  without  excep- 
tion they  have  been  non-edible  by  any  animal. 
For  many  years  it  has  been  the  custom  in  Africa, 
as  well  as  in  those  parts  of  America  where  it 
abounds,  to  feed  to  cattle  certain  varieties  of 
the  prickly  pear  cactus  after  the  spines  have 
been  burned  off.  This  burning,  of  course,  greatly 
increases  the  cost  of  fodder.  The  food  value  of 
this  spiney  cactus  for  stock  has  been  known  by 
cattlemen,  who  have  grown  and  used  it  for  same 
years. 

Mr.  William  Sinclair,  a  successful  cattle  grower 
of  Texas,  writes: 

"We  find  it  very  poor  policy  to  put  the  slight- 
est limit  on  the  amount  of  cactus  our  cows  get. 
The  more  they  can  eat  the  better  they  thrive  and 
the  more  milk  they  give.  There  is  nothing  that 
sets1  them  back  more  than  a  shortage  of  cactus. 
If  we  happen  to  be.  short  of  milk  the  cause  is 
almost  invariably  traced  to  the  shortage  ofj 
cactus." 

The  following  table  shows  the  comparative 
value  of  the  average  cacti,  alfalfa,  hay  and  gam- 
ma, a  typical  range  grass,  according  to  analyses 
made  by  the  University  of  Arizona  agricultural 
experimental  station: 

In  Water-Free   Substance 
Cactus 

without       Alfalfa      Gamma 
fruit  hay  grass 

Ash     19.91  5.67  15.11 

Protein    6.48  12.74  6.99 

Fiber    10.22  39.04  30.31 

Nitro  free  extract..   61.48  41.06.  45.63 

Ether   1.83  1.49  1.96 

The  great  desirability  of  the  rapid  growing 
and  edible  spineless  cactus  for  cattle  food  has 
been  recognized  all  over  the  world.  Inspired  by 
the  work  of  Mr.  Burbank  and  by  the  experiments 
made  by  the  French  Government  in  Algiers,  the 
United  States,  through  the  Department  of  Agri- 


culture, was  several  years  ago  moved  to  take  up 
the  matter  of  securing  spineless  cactus.  Experts 
were  sent  to  foreign  countries,  and  the  world 
was  searched  that  a  cactus  might  be  found  spine- 
less, or  nearly  spineless,  which  would  have  suffi- 
cient nutriment  to  be  valuable  as  a  cattle  fodder. 
From  the  plants  so  collected  the  Department  of 
Agriculture  has  been  able  to  produce  a  cactus 
sufficiently  free  from  spines  and  nutritive 
enough  to  be  of  some  value  for  the  cattle  busi- 
ness. But  today,  in  spite  of  all  its  organization 
and  its  wealth,  the  Department  of  Agriculture 
has  not  obtained  a  cactus  that  is  in  any  respect 
the  equal  of  the  cactus  produced  by  Mr.  Burbank 
single-handed. 

Of  all  stock  food,  the  Burbank  improved  spine- 
less cactus  is  by  far  the  most  prolific. 

It  is  adapted  to  almost  any  soil  where  the  tem- 
perature does  not  go  below  18  degrees  above  zero, 
and  it  will  stand  a  great  amount  of  heat. 

Cactus  is  the  only  fodder  that  furnishes  green, 
succulent  feed  all  the  year. 

Another  source  of  great  value  in  the  Burbank 
improved  spineless  cactus  is  its  fruit.  It  is  a  fall 
and  winter  fruit  of  attractive  colors — crimson, 
scarlet,  yellow,  white  and  variegated.  It  is  a  sure 
bearer;  a  good  packer  and  shipper;  very  health- 
ful, andi  of  a  flavor  which  many  prefer  to  that 
of  bananas  or  figs.  It  contains  8  per  cent  to  16 
per  cent  of  sugar;  is  a  great  fattener  for  hogs 
and  cattle.  Poultry  also  is  extremely  fond  of  it. 

These  make  fine  jellies,  jams  and  glace  fruits, 
and  can  be  used  for  coloring  ices,  jellies,  confec- 
tionery, and  so  forth. 

In  an  experimental  way,  from  the  Burbank  im- 
proved spineless  cactus,  paper  pulp  and  wood  al- 
cohol have  been  produced.  But  the  greatest 
value  of  Burbank  improved  spineless  cactus  will 
be  that  it  will  make  highly  productive  and  valu- 
able vast  tracts  of  land  now  barren  because  of 
insufficient  rainfall,  not  only  in  Southern  Cali- 
fornia and  Arizona,  the  natural  home  of  the 
cactus,  but  also  in  South  America,  Australia, 
India,  Egypt  and  elsewhere. 

For  example,  on  the  west  side  of  the  San 
Joaquin  Valley  are  large  tracts  of  land  prac- 
tically bare  and  worth  but  $10  or  $15  per  acre. 
The  annual  rainfall  is  about  five  or  six  inches 
— making  the  land  semi-arid.  On  this  soil,  with- 
out irrigation,  is  produced  enough,  with  a  few 
pounds  of  chopped  straw,  bran  or  other  rough- 
age, to  keep  four  cows  per  acre  all  the  year.  This 
same  land,  when  so  situated  that  it  can  be  irri- 
gated and  planted  to  alfalfa,  keeps  about  one 
cow  per  acre  annually  and  is  now  selling  for  $200 
per  acre.  In  other  words,  Burbank  improved 
spineless  cactus  will  give  $15-an-acre  land  a 
greater  earning  power  than  alfalfa  on  $200-an- 
acre  land. 


Alexandria,  Egypt,  April  23,  1908. 

"Please  be  kind  enough  to  send  us  offer  for 
one  or  mo're  varieties  of  plants  and  the  amount 
Of  money  we  will  have  to  send  to  you  for  post- 


ing a  lot  of  leaves  to  Egypt. 

"His  highness,  the  Khedive,  is  keenly  inter- 
ested in  the  question  of  your  Opuntias  and  will 
be  glad  to  see  a  success  of  our  future  experi- 
ments,"— Charles  Chevalier  de  Blumencron. 


Special  Information 


The  best  of  these  improved  Spinelesss 
Opuntias  when  grown  under  favorable 
conditions  on  good  soil  in  a  warm  cli- 
mate may  confidently  be  expected  to  pro- 
duce an  average  of  nearly  or  quite  fifty 
to  one  hundred  tons  of  feed  per  acre  when 
once  established,  each  season. 

So  much  has  been  written  about  the 
spineless  cactus  and  so  many  are  de- 
ceived with  the  old  cheap,  half-wild  va- 
rieties which  are  so  often  offered  as  "Bur- 
bank's"  or  "just  as  good  as  Burbank's" 
that  it  seems  necessary  to  have  them  dis- 
tributed direct  from  the  originator  and 
under  correct  descriptions  so  as  to  avoid 
as  much  as  possible  any  misunderstand- 
ings, exaggerations  or  misstatements  such 
as  heretofore  have  been  carelessly,  igno- 
rantly  or  willfully  made.  Utterly  spurious 
"Burbank's  Thornless  Cactus"  has  been 
offered  for  sale  by  dishonest  parties  for 
six  years  or  more,  not  only  in  America, 
but  also  in  Europe,  Africa  and  Australia. 

In  producing  these  new  Opuntais  more 
than  seventeen  years  and  much  thought, 
labor  and  capital  have  been  expended, 
thousands  of  crosses  have  been  made,  and 
many  hundred  thousand  seedlings  and 
crossbred  seedlings  raised.  The  finished 
product  is  receiving  a  royal  welcome 
everywhere  by  those  who  know. 

Few  of  the  cacti  are  of  any  economic 
value  except  the  Opuntias ;  of  these  there 
are  more  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  spe- 
cies and  innumerable  varieties;  all  prob- 
ably originally  natives  of  the  Western 
Hemisphere  and  were  cultivated  by  the 
Indians  long  before  Columbus  discovered 
America.  No  class  of  plants  are  more 
easily  grown,  soil  is  not  of  much  import- 
ance and  cultivation  almost  unnecessary. 

These  new  varieties  are  wholly  distinct 
and  the  only  really  thornless  ones  known 
on  earth  that  are  of  any  practical  value  as 
producers  of  feed. 
26 


Stock  can  be  turned  loose  among  the 
cactus,  after  the  plants  have  reached  an 
age  of  three  years,  as  the  main  stem  be- 
comes woody  and  can  not  be  injured.  On 
the  removal  of  the  stock  from  the  cactus 
plant  pasture,  new  leaves  or  slabs  rapidly 
appear,  and  in  a  short  time  has  as  much 
feed  as  it  had  originally. 

The  cactus  yields  big,  luscious  slabs, 
weighing  from  one  to  seven  pounds  each, 
which  can  be  cut  at  any  time,  summer 
or  winter.  There  is  no  particular  harvest 
season,  therefore,  no  necessity  to  harvest 
and  store. 

The  selection  of  ordinary  Opuntia  cut- 
tings is  of  some  importance.  Those  who 
have  grown  them  on  the  shores  of  the 
Mediterranean  for  hundreds  of  years  al- 
ways select  "bearing  wood"  if  fruit  is  the 
object,  and  the  least  thorny  and  bristly 
leaves  if  a  plantation  is  to  be  produced  for 
forage;  even  some  of  the  partially  spiny 
ones  may  be  made  less  so  by  careful  se- 
lection of  cuttings,  but  this  labor  is  wholly 
useless  since  the  new  Burbank  varieties 
are  offered. 

When  alfalfa  was  generally  introduced 
about  twenty  years  ago,  many  wiseacres 
declared  it  was  "no  feed  for  milch  cows." 
Who  says  it  is  not  good  for  them  now? 

It  has  been  proved  that  the  poorest  of 
the  Burbank  spineless  cactus  varieties 
are  so  far  superior  to  any  of  the  old  half 
thorny  ones  that  no  comparison  with 
them  can  fairly  be  made.  Is  it  then  sur- 
prising that  practically  all  the  nations  of 
the  earth  are  anxious  to  obtain  the  new 
Burbank  Cactus  as  soon  as  possible?  Be 
very  careful,  however,  that  you  get  the 
Burbank  cactus,  not  the  half  spineless 
ones  so  very  often  sold  as  the  "Burbank" 
or  "just  as  good  as  the  Burbank,"  such  as 
the  builders  of  the  pyramids  of  Egypt 
may  have  cultivated. 


BURBANK'S  THORNLESS  CACTUS  AT 
KIAMUKI 

"Burbank's  thornless  cactus  is  now  being  culti- 
vated at  Kiamuki,  and  plants  are  being  taken 
from  there  and  sent  to  the  other  islands.  This 
new  form  of  cactus  is  growing  well  and  there 
are  hopes  that  it  will  grow  rapidly  on  the  other 
islands,  especially  in  the  cattle  districts. 

"As  a  food  product  the  cactus  appeals  to  cattle 
as  one  of  the  most  attractive  foods  found  in  the 
pasture  lands.  Even  the  thorny  cactus  is  eaten 
by  them." — "Commercial  Advertiser/'  Honolulu, 
T.  H. 


International     Headquarters     Salvation     Army 
Service,  London,  E.  C. 

"I  am  so  glad  to  know  that  you  will  so  kindly 
supply  us  with  your  latest  varieties  of  absolutely 
spineless  cactus,  as  I  am  sure  this  will  be  most 
valuable  to  India.  Next  to  human  beings  the 
cattle  in  India  suffer  terribly  at  the  time  of 
famine  and  scarcity;  in  fact,  during  two  or 
three  months  every  year  they  are  reduced  to 
the  point  of  starvation  during  the  extremely 
hot  weather,  wandering  about  in  search  of  food. 
Hence,  I  feel  sure  your  cactus  will  be  a  great 
boon  to  them,  for  cactus,  as  you  know,  grows 
freely  in  all  parts  of  India,  only  it  is  of  the 
thorny  kind. 

"Wishing  you  every  success  in  your  work,  be- 
lieve me, 

"Yours  very  sincerely, 

"F.  BOOTH  TUCKER." 


Imperial  Russian  Consulate, 
San  Francisco,  Cal. 
Luther  Burbank,  Esq.,  Santa  Rosa,  Cal. 

Dear  Sir:  It  is  generally  known  that  scientific 
societies,  both  public  and  private,  as  well  as  the 
world  at  large,  are  greatly  interested  in  your 
work  of  research.  Lately  the  Imperial  Russian 
Department  of  Agriculture  has  turned  its  atten- 
tion to  your  cultivation  of  the  thornless  cactus. 
I  have  the  honor  to  be, 

Yours  truly, 

K. 


THAT    SPINELESS   CACTUS   IS   A   SUCCESS 

HAS  BEEN  PROVEN  AT  YUMA 
The  growing  of  spineless  cactus  is  no  longer 
a  desert  dream,  or  the  figment  of  the  imagina- 
tion. This  desert  wonder  is  being  grown  in  the 
desert  lands  adjacent  to  Yuma  and  some  sur- 
prisingly good  results  are  being  obtained. — 
"Times,"  Bouse,  Ariz. 


"That  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  of  the  city 
of  San  Diego  does  most  heartily  endorse  the  ef- 
forts to  spread  the  new  Burbank  fodder,  thorn- 
less  cactus,  throughout  the  Southwest,  thereby 
rendering  highly  productive  vast  areas  of  arid 
and  semi-arid  lands,  and  thus  still  further  demon- 
strating the  agricultural  importance  of  this  sec- 
tion of  the  country." — Resolution  adopted  by 
San  Diego  Chamber  of  Commerce. 


SAMPLES  OF  VARIOUS  COMMENTS  ON  THE 
WORK 

"Mr.  Burbank's  first  publication  on  economic 
cacti  serves  to>  set  at  rest  many  groundless  sup- 


positions as  to  the  character  of  the  work  he  has 
had  under  way  for  years  on  these  plants.  Some 
persons,  forgetting  that  Mr.  Burbank  has  made 
up  to  now  no  official  announcement  of  his  work, 
jumped  to  the  conclusion  that  he  had  merely  hit 
upon  one  of  the  common  nearly  spineless  forms 
of  Opuntia  Ficus  Indica.  Others  more  dishonest 
have  been  offering  for  sale  so-called  'Burbank's 
Thornless  Cactus,'  despite  the  fact  that  not  a 
single  plant  or  seed  of  Mr.  Burbank's  new  crea- 
tions has  left  his  grounds  up  to  a  few  weeks  ago. 
"Mr.  Burbank  was  perfectly  well  aware  of  the 
inception  of  his  work  on  the  opuntias  that  there 
were  many  forms  nearly  thornless,  and  he  has 
even  brought  to  light  one  kind,  which  he  calls  the 
'Marin,'  grown  in  many  countries,  that  has 
neither  spines  nor  spicules.  The  Marin  is  not 
of  much  value,  however,  as  it  is  a  rather  small 
plant  and  is  not  hardy.  The  new  forms  are 
much  more  rapid  growers  and  are  also  more 
hardy." — Dr.  Walter  T.  Swingle,  U.  S.  Depart- 
ment of  Agriculture,  Washington,  D.  C. 


Consulado  G-eneral  de  Mexico, 

San  Francisco,  Cal. 
Hon.  Luther  Burbank, 
Santa  Rosa,  Oal. 

Honored  Sir. — I  beg  to  offer  you  my  profound 
acknowledgments  for  your  kindest  authorization 
to  have  your  announcement  of  the  spineless  cacti 
translated  into  Spanish  by  Professor  Luis  A. 
Beauregard,  Director  General  of  Public  Instruc- 
tion of  Campeche,  Mexico. 

I  have  sent  to  the  professor  a  textual  copy  of 
your  honored  letter. 

I  have,  sir,  the  honor  to  be 

Your  most  obedient  servant, 

P.  ORNELAS. 


"It  produces  tremendous  tonnage;  it  requires  no 
irrigation;  it  is  an  excellent  dairy  roughage,  good 
roughage  for  any  cattle,  and  can  be  used  for  hogs, 
chickens,  sheep  and  goats.  It  can  be  fed  in  a 
green  succulent  condition  all  the  year.  It  has  no 
serious  insect  or  fungous  enemies.  One  planting 
is  good  for  repeated  cuttings.  It  does  not  de- 
teriorate with  age,  but  can  be  fed  when  five  or 
six  years  old  to  even  better  advantage  than  when 
young.  It  is  a  certain  crop  under  conditions 
which  cause  other  crops  to  be  a  failure. 

"It  has  been  called  a  'vegetable  that  grows 
fruit.' " 

"As  a  poultry  food  it  is  unsurpassed.  Poultry 
will  leave  alfalfa,  lettuce  and  other  green  food 
for  cactus  leaves." 

"The  response  of  this  plant  to  cultivation  is 
phenomenal.  We  know  of  no  parallel  in  the  his- 
tory of  cultivated  crops.  The  cacti  in  general 
are  considered  plants  of  slow  growth  and  the 
pear  of  Southern  Texas  is  no  exception  to  the 
general  rule.  While  it  might  take  it  five  or  six 
years  to  grow  large  enough  to  pay  to  harvest  in 
the  native  pastures,  it  makes  a  big  crop  in  two 
years  when  cultivated.  By  actual  test  it  grows 
eight  times  as  fast  with  good  cultivation  as  it 
does  without  cultivation  in  grassy  pastures." 

27 


What  Prominent  People  Say  of  Luther  Burbank 


"I  look  to  great  practical  results  from 
Burbank's  work  among  plants." — Thomas 
A.  Edison. 

It  is  said  by  David  Starr  Jordan,  presi- 
dent of  Leland  Stanford  Junior  Univers- 
ity, California,  that: 

"Luther  Burbank  is  the  greatest  orig- 
inator of  new  and  valuable  forms  of  plant 
life  of  this  or  any  other  age." 

"No  other  man  has  given  to  horticul- 
ture so  many  valuable  things  as  has  Lu- 
ther Burbank." — Prof.  E.  J.  Wickson, 
Dean  of  the  Department  of  Agriculture  of 
the  University  of  California. 

"He  stands  easily  at  the  head  of  the 
world's  experimentalists  in  plant  life." — 
W.  Atlee  Burpee,  of  Philadelphia,  one  of 
the  leading  seedmen  in  the  United  States. 

By  Dr.  L.  H.  Bailey,  professor  of  bot- 
any in  Cornell  University,  New  York: 

"It  is  an  honor  to  California  that  Lu- 
ther Burbank  is  its  citizen.  He  is  all  that 
he  has  ever  been  said  to  be,  and  more." 

Joaquin  Miller,  the  Poet  of  the  Sierras, 
said: 

"I  like  to  go  to  Santa  Rosa,  the  home 
of  Luther  Burbank,  the  man  who  is  help- 
ing God  make  the  earth  more  beautiful." 

"In  all  Europe  there  is  no  one  who  can 
even  compare  with  Luther  Burbank.  The 
time  will  come  when  he  will  be  as  well 
known  and  as  highly  cherished  in  Cali- 
fornia as  he  now  is  among  the  scientific 
men  of  Europe.  He  is  a  unique,  great 
genius." — Hugo  De  Vries,  of  Amsterdam, 
Holland,  the  leading  botanist  of  Europe. 


"Mr.  Burbank  is  a  man  who  does  things 
that  are  of  much  benefit  to  mankind,  and 
we  should  do  all  in  our  power  to  help 
him." — Theodore  Roosevelt. 

"Mr.  Burbank's  greatness,  and  the  mag- 
nitude of  the  value  of  his  achievements 
are  recognized  the  world  over  by  men 
best  capable  of  understanding  and  appre- 
ciating both  the  man  and  his  work."  — 
Congressman  E.  A.  Hayes. 

"To  Luther  Burbank  has  been  granted 
the  knowledge,  supreme  beyond  other 
men,  of  the  susceptibility  of  plants  to  vary 
under  the  influence  of  new  environments, 
delicate  manipulation  and  intelligent  di- 
rection."— Scientific  American. 

"The  man  who  always  does  most  says 
the  least.  Your  good  works  will  bless  hu- 
manity long  after  you  have  said  'Good 
night.'  Your  work  is  always  a  source  of 
inspiration  to  me,  and  I  am  continuously 
wondering  'What  will  he  accomplish 
next?'  "—Col.  G.  B.  Brackett,  Pomological 
Chief  U.  S.  Dept.  of  Agriculture,  Wash- 
ington, D.  C. 

"While  I  have  long  been  impressed 
with  your  work,  I  am  now  overwhelmed 
with  the  vast  amount  of  good  which  you 
have  been  able  to  accomplish.  I  respect 
your  work  above  all  that  has  ever  been 
done  for  horticulture." — Prof.  Wm.  B. 
Alwood,  Virginia  College  and  Experiment 
Station. 


28 


How  to  Order 


Wherever  it  is  possible  to  do  so,  use  the  order  blank. 
Fill  out  all  the  information  that  the  blank  spaces  call  for. 

Be  sure  to  write  your  name  plainly.  Give  postomce  where  you 
receive  your  mail,  including  County  name.  State  plainly  the  town 
or  point  where  you  receive  your  freight. 

Give  the  name  of  the  Railroad  or  Express  company  from  which 
you  receive  your  freight.  State  whether  to  ship  by  freight  or  express. 
In  the  absence  of  specified  instructions,  we  shall  use  our  judgment. 

Usually  orders  will  be  shipped  by  freight  unless  otherwise  speci- 
fied. An  exception  to  this  rule  will  be  where  the  package  is  small, 
when  it  may  be  shipped  by  express.  No  shipments  are  made  by  mail. 

You  will  be  notified  of  shipment.  Allow  a  sufficient  length  of 
time  for  the  package  to  arrive,  and  then  if  it  does  not  arrive  notify  the 
railroad  or  express  company,  showing  the  bill  of  lading.  Also  notify 
us  by  mail  and  we  will  send  a  tracer  after  it. 

We  are  not  responsible  in  any  manner  after  we  have  delivered 
the  shipment  in  proper  condition  to  the  carrier.  We  will  do  all  in 
our  power,  however,  to  straighten  out  any  difficulty. 

Nothing  will  be  sent  C.  O.  D. 

All  remittances  must  be  either  postal  orders,  bank  drafts  or  cer- 
tified checks,  properly  made  out  to  this  company. 

OUR  GUARANTEE. 

We  guarantee  the  seeds,  plants  or  trees  sold  by  this  company 
true  to  name,  and  will  replace  any  that  may  prove  otherwise  through 
a  possible  error,  or  will  refund  the  original  purchase  price.  Our 
liability  upon  any  article  sold  is  limited  to  the  amount  of  the  original 
purchase  price,  and  all  sales  are  made  with  this  understanding. 

The  Luther  Burbank  Company 

GENERAL  OFFICES 

Exposition  Building,  Pine  and  Battery  Sts. 
San  Francisco,  California 


MANY  new  trees,  plants  and  seeds  are  grossly  misrepresented  by  a  few 
dealers  who  trade  on  the  reputation  of  reliable  firms,  often  doing  a  thriving 
business  by  selling  trees  and  plants  in   localities  where  they  very  well 
know  that  they  cannot  thrive;  this  and  the  substitution  of  inferior  or  wholly 
worthless  trees  or  plants  under  the  name  and  reputation  of  good  ones  has  been, 
and  is  now  being  carried  on  persistently  and  systematically  by  several  parties 
who  victimize  those  who  deal  with  them  by  trading  on  the  reputations  of  reliable 
firms  and  good  trees1. 

An  especially  cruel  form^of  this  is  the  persistent  pushing  of  the  Spineless 
Cactus,  Crimson  Winter  Rhubarb  and  other  tender  plants  for  cold  climates, 
which  cannot  live  where  the  ground  freezes  an  inch  in  depth. 

It  should  be  the  duty  and  privilege  of  every  good  citizen  to  aid  in  exposing 
and  routing  all  who  are  obtaining  money  under  these  false  pretenses. 

Having  been  in  business  almost  forty  years,  millions  of  trees  and  plants 
raised  in  my  establishment  are  now  bearing  fruit,  not  only  in  the  Western  United 
States,  but  everywhere  on  earth  where  the  sun  shines  and  trees  can  be  grown. 
Does  this  forty  years'  record  of  just  dealing  mean  anything,  and  is  it  surprising 
that  such  a  reputation  should  be  worth  trading  on?  Counterfeit  coins  are  not 
counterfeited — it  is  the  genuine  ones  that  are  misrepresented. 


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